Thursday, December 23, 2004

Nevis New Year Bash!

We had an AMAZING New Year Party (well in advance ;-) ) yesterday night at a VERY ROMANTIC place: Oasis, on Pashan-NDA Road. The open air ambience was GREAT. DJ sucked! But starters and dinner was good. An interesting thing happened that night ... there I discovered a VERY CUTE female. Her skin as Soft as Butter ... as Fair as an Angel ... she was as Beautiful as a Fairy ... So Cutie Cutie Cutie ... Sweetie Sweetie Sweetie ... And guess what, I'll share her photo with you all! But before I do that, I WARN you that she might take your breath away! So keep a life-supporting system handy ... and be careful! Here you go ... click 1 ... click 2 and click 3! Thats enough, I guess!

Here are some photos from the party ...


1. Look out bud! The liquid in those glasses is not meant for kids ...
Myself having ball of a time ...



2. We Will We Will ROCK You!
Buddies in FULL form ... (reminding you that this was despite the fact that DJ SUCKED like HELL!)









3. Angels And Demons ...
(second half not literally ... )




4. Men In Black ...
Hmmm .... not bad ... Barry Sonnenfeld can make a MIB trilogy!




That's it! It's 0940 hrs @ office now and only a few people have turned up! People indeed had a lot of ____ you know what ;-)
Party mood out ... work mood in! Have a GREAT DAY ahead!

Photo Credits: Atul Talesara
Equipment: Fuji FinePix S3000
Mode: All photos taken at AutoFocus setting



Tuesday, December 21, 2004

What next!

Hey Buddies, in my previous post about latest novel I read, I forgot to mention that I've picked up Angles & Demons, by Dan Brown. The reason I'm dedicating a special post just to tell that I've picked up that novel is not that I don't have any work. Far from that! It's just becasue it's SUCH A WONDERFUL novel that I couldn't wait to finish it and urge you guys to read it. It is a prequel to Da Vinci Code. And I tell you it's hell of a novel! Of the 100+ pages I read, I bet this is more exciting, exhilarating, enjoyable, action-packed ... than Da Vinci Code. So pick up a copy and devour it! Esp. with a hot cup of tea (or coffee, chilled beer, or whatever) in the balcony, yourself draped well in warm cozy clothing! What the hell ... I'm getting again and again to that mist! I don't want to sit here in my 10x10 cubicle with such a wonderful morning outside. Such a waste of Nature's Beautiful Morning!

What a drive!

I’m listening to the songs of Mughal-E-Azam while driving towards my office. WOW!!! These wonderful songs while driving through empty misty roads with vision clear as far as my eye can see, blocked only by the thick mist! What a wonderful way to start the day! You don’t see so much of mist in Pune upto this late in the morning. How BADLY I wish I still were a student ... would have definitely bunked the college and gone for a long drive with buddies ... stopping by a small hut-like stall to have HOT Vada-Pav with Steaming Hot Masala Tea!!! GOD damn this phone! Got me out of my fantasy ride! Be right back with you ... till then ... envy me uh ... rather my fantasy!

The Best Laid Plans, Sidney Sheldon

The Best Laid Plans an amazing page-turner, is what I would call it. Its about a beautiful and ambitious executive, Leslie, who learns that for some men, Oliver, power is the greatest aphrodisiac. The rest of novel is dominated by the explosive collisions between the two equally determined people. With Oliver aiming at the White House, to become a President, Leslie swears to make him wish he was never born! Though it’s an amazingly action-packed fast-paced thriller, end is something that disappointed me. If you like thriller and suspense, the novel has plenty of both. And least to say, it has most unexpected twists, and the one in the end is the only one that disappointed me. But I don’t repent reading this novel, for I enjoyed it until the last but one page!
BTW, as of this writing, I peep out of my window and see mist all around. How desperately I wish I had a GF, I would have gone with her for a wonderful breakfast and maybe movie thereafter ;-) How romantic! Hell ... the fantasy ends as my watch beeps that it's time to take my butt off the chair and head to office!Got LOADS of work @ office, as usual.

Friday, December 17, 2004

My own 2 cent VIM Tip

I was editing some code and it required HELL lot of comments (well ... I do put ample comments in the code!!!) and FIXME/TODO notes. I like the format to be something like:
AtulT 17-Dec-04 TODO <text follows here>

Typing this tens of times is !@#$ing boring. You can abbreviate it as:
ab coM AtulT 17-Dec-04
ab TODO AtulT 17-Dec-04 TODO
ab FIXME AtulT 17-Dec-04 FIXME
But that's no GOOD!!! Why??? Hell, I have to change ab settings every day! Thats not how a programmer codes! I knew that HAS to be a better way, esp. when I have VIM! And yes, I discovered my own very very sexy way of doing that. I would love to share my own 2 cent tip with you.

Add this to your .vimrc file:
" Special settings to include date and my name in
" TODO FIXME and comments
" date "+%d-%b-%y"
ab coM AtulT ^O:r! date +\%d-\%b-\%y^[ kJA
ab TODO AtulT ^O:r! date +\%d-\%b-\%y^[ kJA TODO
ab FIXME AtulT ^O:r! date +\%d-\%b-\%y^[ kJA FIXME

BINGO! There I am! Now I coolly type 'coM' and vim expands it to 'AtulT 17-Dec-04'. Same goes for TODO and FIXME!!! The best part is that it will ALWAYS picks up the current date. I'm not sure if there's a sexier way of achieving this, but my own tip is SEXY enough ;-) You can change this to include time, pwd, exact user-id, GID, ... any damn thing.

AtulT 30-Jun-08:Adding space between ^[ and k (i.e. Esc and k) made this tip work for terminal-based vim.

IMPORTANT!
^O and ^[ are special control characters, the way to enter them is, in insert mode, press Ctrl-Q followed by Ctrl-O and Ctrl-Q Ctrl-Esc resp. You know you have entered them right if you navigate over ^O and ^[ and cursor passes through both at once, as a single character. Use Ctrl-V if Ctrl-Q doesn't work for you.

Thursday, December 16, 2004

Da Vinci Code, by Dan Brown

This is one of those few novels where you cannot conclude if its fiction or fact! You never grasp where the facts end and author's fiction/conclusions start. Facts and imagination are interwoven so beautifully! The first (and the only one) novel I read of this type is "The Seventh Secret, by Irving Wallace", which explored to depth the possibility that Hitler never committed suicide but escaped before the allied forces stormed into his bunker. After reading Da Vinci Code you are bound to doubt the very foundations and basis of modern Christianity. The novel is about (well, don't worry, no spoilers! I won't reveal any suspense) deliberate anomalies/oddities in Da Vinci's paintings wanting to tell it's viewer something, giving you premises to doubt the very claims of modern Christianity. The story is set in Paris where symbologist, Robert Langdon, comes under policemen's eye as a prime suspect in murder of museum's curator. Fighting against all the odds, studying and deciphering the hidden hints in paintings, carvings and anagrams Robert vows to uncover the murderer, a quest that will lead him to the deadliest and most closely guarded secrets of history!!! There's no looking back once he steps in! Whether you love Arts, History, Suspense, Thriller, Drama, Action OR Secret Cults ... this novel is going to race your pulses!!! In fact if this novel doesn't get your beats rising, you better get your medical checkup done, :-) LOL! This novel has definitely made into my Top 20s list!

Moral: This novel is a MUST READ!
What next? Well, I wanted to read The Glass Bead Game, by Herman Hesse(genre Spiritual), but couldn't manage to borrow it from my buddy in time. So started with Sidney Sheldon's "The Best Laid Plans". Review on that will follow soon.

Atlas Shrugged, by Ayan Rand

Hurray! Finally, I've finished reading this novel! Yes, for not-so voracious reader like me, it was an arduous task to read this 1700 paged novel with microscopic typesetting! It's a philosophical novel portraying what would become of world if all the rationality was destroyed from it and the world was left to be run by the moochers (read ____ing power-hungry parasitic politicians). Everyone trying to earn, not by his effort or ability, but by mere needs; claiming ownership on fruits of others' hard work just on the basis of his needs. Trying to claim that it's the extent of need that decides who gets what, and not the capacity of a person to produce or his caliber.Ayan Rand goes to the extent of saving that without rationality the purpose of a man's life is to become an abject Zombie who serves the purpose he doesn't know. And I tell you, she does a pretty good job here. If you are labeled "Selfish" when you feed your son with milk while the neighbouring child is starving, then YES! You better be selfish! Well, I'm not supporting selfishness, but Ayan gives us a look into different kind of selfishness, of the type I just mentioned above. Had it been in my capacity, I would have this novel as "Code of Moral Conduct".
After reading second novel by this Ayan (first being Fountainhead) I have come to believe that she is BEST at describing human gestures of any kind. So much so, that an animator can EXACTLY model it without any difficulty of any sort. Yes, the length of novel can be attributed to this characteristic of hers: The description spans 2/3 paragraphs where something as simple as "And he grinned" would have sufficed! If you don't like circumlocution, you better keep your hands off her novels.
This novel is NOT for those who:
- despise elaborate descriptions
- hate philosophy
- hate slow paced novels
- love to take novels as a sedative to bed
But this is a CANDY for anyone who likes philosophy.

Divided in 3 sections, first section sets the stage where rationality keeps vanishing from the world, second shows how a few rationalists people manage to survive in such a world and the last one ... well, not supposed to tell you that, I don't want this to be a spoiler to prospective readers. So get your hands on this novel and read through it!

Tuesday, December 14, 2004

Water Therapy

Thought of sharing this AMAZING health tip with you.
Drink six [6] glasses of water (1.5 litre) everyday and avoid medicine, tablets, injections, diagnosis, doctor fees etc. You can never believe before practicing.

HOW TO DO THIS WATER THERAPY?
1. Early morning, after you get up from bed, (without even brushing your teeth) drink 1.50 litters of water i.e. 5 to 6 glasses. Let us all know that ancient Indians termed this therapy as "USHA PAANA CHIKITSA". You may wash your face thereafter.


2. Here it is very essential to note that nothing else, neither drinks nor solid food of any sort should be taken within 1 hr. before and after drinking these 1.5 litters of water.


3. It is also to be strictly observed that no alcoholic drinks shall be taken the previous night.


4. If required, boiled and filtered water may be used for this purpose. Is it possible to drink 1.50 litters of water at one time? This is a BIG QUESTION? To begin with, one may find it difficult to drink 1.50 litters of water at one time, but one will get used to it gradually. Initially, while practicing you may drink four glasses first and then the balance two glasses after a gap of 2 minutes. Initially you may find the necessity to urinate 2 - 3 times within an hour, but it will become normal after quite some time.


By research and experience, the following diseases are observed to be cured with this therapy within the indicated days as below (I doubt if diabetes and cancer part are actually true):
Constipation -- 1 day
Acidity -- 2 days.
Diabetes -- 7 days.
Cancer -- 4 weeks
Pulmonary TB -- 3 months
BP & Hypertension -- 4 weeks


HOW DOES PURE WATER ACT ?
Consuming ordinary drinking water by the right method purifies human body. It renders the colon more effective by forming new fresh blood, known in medical terms as Haematopaises. That the mucousal folds of the colon and intestines are activated by this method, is an undisputed fact, just as the theory that new fresh blood is produced by the mucousal fold. If the colon is cleansed then the nutrients of the food taken several times a day will be absorbed and by the action of the mucousal folds they are turned in to fresh blood. The blood is all-important in curing ailments and restoring health and for this water should be consumed in a regular pattern.


LIFE IS SHORT & INVALUABLE, JUST GO FOR IT.

Wishing you A Healthy Life.

Note: My Mommy is pursuing PhD in Jainology and this is exactly what she explained me about drinking water early morning!
Additionally, please note that the saliva that's in your mouth through the night has got great medicinal value, so it should go into your stomatch, implying, drink water even before you spit out or gargle or brush. Taking water kept in
copper vessel overnight will add to it's medicinal value.

Monday, December 13, 2004

Migratory Birds @ Bhigwan and Matoba

Had been to Bird Watching outing this Sunday, along with a group called InSearch.
Every year, from September through Feburary, Pune and it's surrounding wetlands give home to a number of migratory birds. These birds travel thousands of kilometers (many of them non-stop!!!) to escape the inclement conditions of Europe, Northern Asia and Himalayas.

Bhigwan: Situated about 100km from Pune, the waters of Ujani dam provides a healthy habitat attracting Ducks, Pochards, Storks, Sea Gulls, Marsh Harrier, Herons, etc.
Not to forget, if you get lucky you can glimpse at Flamingoes too!

Matoba: Is a big lake situated about 50km from Pune. You get to see plenty of Brahminy Ducks and Shovellers here.

To share the fun with you, I've posted a few snaps, you can have a look at them.

1. Heron in Flight:



2. Another Heron in flight




3. Closeup of a Pond Heron



4. A bird that we caught a glimpse from bus



5. A Fleet of Flamingoes
Man, you should look them with binoculars, they look AMAZING!
We could only see a fleet of hundreds of them flying past us a few times.



Most of the birds @ Matoba weren't big enough to capture in my camera with zoom of 6x, hence you no birds from Matoba lake.

6. Wonderful Sunset



7. Pink Flower




Photo Credits:
1 through 6 myself, Atul Talesara
7 My buddy, Harpreet Saluja.
Equipment: Fuji FinePix S3000
Mode: All photos taken at AutoFocus setting.
Note: I've cropped all the photos and reduced the resolution to post them on blog. Please contact me in case you want the higher resolution images.


Thursday, December 09, 2004

Get Nostalgic!

In the GOOD olden Doordarshan days, do you recall the animated clip 'Ek Chidiya Anek Chidiya'? Well, I got hold of that clipping, click here and get nostalgic, before the link goes dead!
What ..... More.....
Well, you wanna get more nostalgic, then check this remake of 'Mile Sur Mera Tumhara' The sound track is original, only visuals are new. Warning! This is 58MB clipping.

Re-edit!
Oh! People want to get MORE nostalgic! I'm re-editng this post to increase the dosage!!!
1. Mile Sur Mera Tumhara Audio AND
2. Baje Sargam Bankar Desh Raag Audio:
Hope you love these too!!!

Tuesday, December 07, 2004

Fastest way to convert numbers

Ever wanted to convert thousands of numbers from one base to another!!! Well M$ Windoze's 'calc' is just MORE THAN useless, unless, of course, you are ready to copy-paste each of those thousands of numbers, convert it and then again copy-paste it back to some other file! BTW, even if you are ready to do so, your boss probably will be LEAST impressed by that ;-)

Yes, you are right! Linux (*nix) is the ONLY answer! No need of perl! Neither any arcane scripting. Just plain 'bc' is enough.
Here's the trick:
  1. Copy all your numbers in plain text file.
  2. Put 'ibase=16' as your first and 'quit' as last lines in the file.
  3. You can put 'obase=n' as your second line, in case your output should be in base 'n' (10 is default, so skip it).
  4. bc your_file
BINGO! There you are! All those thousands of numbers are converted to required base in a jiffy!
Note: You need to redirect output of 'step 4' and collect it in a seperate file.

You can use any combination of ibase (Input base) and obase (Output base) in the range '2 thro 16'. But you need to ensure that all input numbers are in CAPITALS! Not a problem at all, use this command to achieve that:
# cat your_file | tr a-f A-F > another_file
(of course, the better way is open in vim and, ggVGgU)
Sample run:
# cat /tmp/hex.txt
ibase=16
FF
100
AF
quit

# bc /tmp/hex.txt
bc 1.06
Copyright 1991-1994, 1997, 1998, 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This is free software with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.
For details type `warranty'.
255
256
175
I'm not arguing that this solution is better than Perl-based or C-based or Script-based ones. But this definitely is the least effort solution given the fact that 'bc' is a part of any standard Linux installation.

One of the views on Linux ...

Linux (rather any *nix) suits people who prefer to scratch their own backs. It can be awkward at first, but those experienced in the process find their itches scratched faster, better and cleaner than hiring someone else to scratch your back.

Monday, December 06, 2004

An account of my Oral Surgery.

Problem:
About 3 weeks back the Right side of Lower jaw swelled, inflicting severe pain. Something that had happened about thrice in past 2 years. Reluctant to visit a dentist, I ignored thinking it would subside in a day or two. But it only got worse and I had to visited a dentist, where she asked me to get an X-ray. I went back to her after 3-4 days with the X-ray and she told that my Wisdom tooth is impacted, i.e. it’s growing tilted outwards exerting tremendous pressure on rest of dentition. I almost skipped my beats when she told me that I’ll have to undergo an operation to get it removed. An operation since the tooth wasn’t externally visible yet!!! Hell, I said to self!!! After much reluctance I visited a dentist and now I’ll have to see an Oral Surgeon!!! GOD help me!!!

The Solution:
On my brother’s insistence I went to Dr. Suhas Vaze, who, incidentally, is also H.O.D of his college. He said that this doc, apart from being an excellent Oral Surgeon, is also famous for his insurmountable cool temperament and patience. Indeed! After my first appointment with him I could sense it and my apprehension subsided after chatting with him. He scheduled my operation on 3rd of Dec, Friday. Much frightened, I reached his clinic on scheduled time. The typical odour in hospitals and clinic, reminiscent of the special chemicals used to keep the hygiene, made me feel so nauseating. After being seated on his chair, he pulled out an injection and I almost instinctively opened my mouth. Doc almost chuckled and said that this was to be administered on my arm. It’s purpose was to reduce the secretion of juices in my mouth to keep gag reflexes at minimum. Later he administered local anesthesia in my mouth, with equal skill. The way with his feather-light hands he injected me, I was coming to have more and more faith in his supreme medical abilities. Just at the same moment I saw only a few (literally 4-5) simple enough instruments on his tray. I was expecting an array of instruments today! GOD! This is really cool! Seeing my clenched fists, doc said ‘don’t worry son, even if I remove all your eight teeth you won’t feel slightest pain’! He then took a long incision on my jaws to expose the jaw-bone. Mind you, the tooth had not yet grown fully, which necessitated grinding jaw bone to expose the tooth within. He revved his 30,000 rpm micro motor (drilling machine, in colloquial terms) and put it in my mouth. It gave out a shrilling sound when it touched my bone, but much skillfully he grinded off requisite amount of bone. I felt doc smiling. Now the tooth was much visible and he put an instrument in my mouth and started pushing it upwards slowly. When it was sufficiently visible, he along with his assistant, started pushing it out harder. This was a little painful and doc had already warned me. The pain was because of pressure I felt on both ends of lower jaw bone, exactly below each of the ears. Seeing doc put the tooth on this tray, almost 40 minutes had passed now, I saw ordeal coming to an end :-) It indeed was!!! That’s it, I said to self. I bet, had it been any other dentist, he would have messed a lot! Despite the fact that he was working in the furthest end of my mouth, I didn’t feel slightest discomfort in my mouth during operation. Well, I’m speaking this of my previous experience of having, to my credit, three root-canal treatments!!! You better believe me! Taking a few stitches he wrote a prescription and explained me the drug schedule. Surprised!!! I saw only one steroid prescribed there! Stupefied, I asked 'only this much'! ‘Yes’, doc said. I got more explicit and asked what about pain-killers! He said I won’t need one, and in case I do, he asked me to take any of combiflam or brufen. The prescribed medicine was to keep a check on infection. Indeed, I didn’t need any pain killers, except for one. After the effect of anesthesia was evanescing at night, I felt severe pain. When it grew almost unbearable I took one brufen and went off to sweet sleep! I was expecting a LARGE swelling on my cheeks the other morning! But no! I was much happier being the Saturday morning! Touch Wood! Except for little a discomfort due to the fact that I cannot chew on hard food stuffs, I’m absolutely comfortable! Touch Wood!
I know, you are hell-bored now, so lemme get down to morals.


Moral 1:
If you have any dental problems, I would strongly advise you to visit this dentist, Dr. Suhas Vaze in Kothrud.

Moral 2:
Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent.
It takes a touch of genius and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction.

Mother of Morals:
Some agonies are physical.
Some are mental.
But the one which is both is ... DENTAL!


Wednesday, December 01, 2004

Sometimes ...

S O M E T I M E S


Sometimes..
when you cry...
no one sees your tears.

Sometimes...
when you are in pain...
no one sees your hurt.

Sometimes...
when you are worried...
no one sees your stress.

Sometimes...
when you are happy...
no one sees your smile.

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-
But FART just ONE time...
And everybody knows!!
Gotcha!! You thought it was going to be one of those heart-touching stories!

Have a productive day and remember you are the key to your happiness